i,i / Bon Iver
Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If For Emma, Forever Ago was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; Bon Iver the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and 22, A Million, a blistering, “crazy energy” Summer record, i, i completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self-acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music. The sales and accolades are well-known – multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds it’s way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on i, i that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music – and band, and themes, and creative space – are bigger than ever.
Brooklyn Youth Chorus performs on the tracks U (Man Like), Naeem, and Faith.
Reviews
Paste Magazine
https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/bon-iver/bon-iver-ii-review/
Inspiration flashes again on “Faith,” a standout track from Bon Iver’s new album i,i. A distant beat propels the track with a train-like rhythm as it expands outward to include piano, synths, saxophones, strings, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and a soaring serene ecstasy, in the spiritual sense.
Entertainment Weekly
https://ew.com/music-reviews/2019/08/08/bon-iver-i-i-review/
Maybe that's why Bon Iver's fourth full-length, i,i, feels as confident as anything he's ever done: a dense, richly layered showcase for his continued aversion to the standard rules of grammar and the deepening of his defiantly uncommercial sound. The woozily atmospheric James Blake collaboration "iMi" erupts into a joyful cacophony of horns; synths pulse like underwater Doppler on the shimmering "Holyfields"; the sweet falsetto of "U (Man Like)" gets full-throated assists from both the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and dad-rock icon Bruce Hornsby, no less.
No Ripcord
https://www.noripcord.com/reviews/music/bon-iver/ii
Although Bon Iver has a reputation as the Justin Vernon show, he’s worked over the years to make the project’s collaborative nature come through. Nowhere is that clearer than on U (Man Like), a beautiful, simple, gospel-infused piano ballad. For most of the track, Vernon lets others take the lead, with Bruce Hornsby, Moses Sumney, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus all getting great appearances on vocals.